A Self-Regulated Microfluidic Device with Thermal Bubble Micropumps

Currently, many microchips must rely on an external force (such as syringe pump, electro-hydrodynamic pump, and peristaltic pump, etc.) to control the solution in the microchannels, which probably adds manual operating errors, affects the accuracy of fluid manipulation, and enlarges the noise of signal. In addition, the reasonable integration of micropump and microchip remain the stumbling block for the commercialization of microfluidic technique. To solve those two problems, we designed and fabricated a thermal bubble micropump based on MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) technique. Many parameters (voltage, pulse time, cycle delay time, etc.) affecting the performance of this micropump were explored in this work. The experimental results showed the flow rate of solution with the assistance of a micropump reached more than 15 μL/min in the optimal condition. Finally, a method about measuring total aflatoxin in Chinese herbs was successfully developed based on the integrated platform contained competitive immunoassay and our micropump-based microfluidics. Additionally, the limit of detection in quantifying total aflatoxin (AF) was 0.0615 pg/mL in this platform. The data indicate this combined technique of biochemical assays and micropump based microchip have huge potential in automatically, rapidly, and sensitively measuring other low concentration of biochemical samples with small volume.